Nucleic acid-based diagnostics can be useful for rapid detection of infection, disease and/or genetic variations. For example, identification of bacterial or viral nucleic acid in a sample can be useful for diagnosing a particular type of infection. Other examples include identification of single nucleotide polymorphisms for disease management or forensics, and identification of genetic variations indicative of genetically modified food products. Often, nucleic acid-based diagnostic assays require amplification of a specific portion of nucleic acid in a sample. A common technique for nucleic acid amplification is the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). This technique typically requires a cycling of temperatures (i.e., thermocycling) to proceed through the steps of denaturation (i.e., separation of the strands in the double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) complex), annealing of oligonucleotide primers (short strands of complementary DNA sequences), and extension of the primer along a complementary target by a polymerase. Such thermocycling can be a time consuming process that generally requires specialized machinery. Thus, a need exists for quicker nucleic acid amplification methods that can be performed without thermocycling. Such methods may be useful, for example, for on-site testing and point-of-care diagnostics.